Thursday, August 30, 2012

My birthday is today. I am 51. I remember my father's 51st
birthday. It is the first birthday of his that I remember. I was
seven. The previous summer we had moved to Butte, Montana from
Winthrop, Washington. My father decided that seven years of cattle
ranching was about enough fun and returned to teaching. He taught
Chemistry at Montana Tech in Butte until his retirement.

On
his 51st birthday, my mom made him a cake. It had five big candles and
one little candle. I remember this so clearly. She counted them
off: "Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty, Fifty, and one." Blowing out 51
candles would have been vulgar. Once you hit fifty you start counting
in decades.

Longevity is in the genes. I
celebrated with my father his 94th birthday this summer on June 6th. I
can't remember if we had a cake for him or not. If we did I am sure we
used those candles that are shaped liked numbers, 9 and 4. Funny, I
really don't remember if we had candles for him or not. After 94
birthdays he may have graduated from having to blow out candles. Just
give him his favorite, pecan pie, already.

My father
has had a lot of birthdays. I haven't been there for all of them but
for a good number of them. I am lucky that way. I have to remember
that today. Because it is going to be a sad day. Zach won't be at
his old man's 51st birthday, let alone his old man's 94th should that
unlikely event occur.

It is those little things like
memories of birthday candles that come out of nowhere and heat up that
burning hole in the chest.

Here are a couple of photos
I just found in my Facebook collection. Here are my parents and me
from three years ago in Montana.

Zach
and I (and Lovely in the background) waiting outside Grimaldi's in
Brooklyn, NY on Thanksgiving 2010. That was a good trip.

Birthdays still happen until they don't. As impossible as it seems, we still have memories to make.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

“His
disciples said to him, ‘When will the Father’s empire come?’ ‘It won’t
come by watching for it. It won’t be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look,
there!’ Rather, the Father’s empire is spread out upon the earth, and
people don’t see it.’”

--Gospel of Thomas 113

Happiness
is the theme for this summer’s worship services. For the past few
years I have coordinated the worship services around the four paths of
Creation Spirituality. I connect a path to a season of the year.
Summer with its abundance seems logically connected to the via positiva.
The way or the path of wow and wonder. It is a path of fullness. It
is life and light and fruitfulness. It is royalty and celebration. It
is music in 4/4 time. It is joyful. It is happy.

This
summer I thought it would be good to examine happiness. What can we
learn about happiness from the sages in our past as well as from our
present knowledge. What is happiness from the perspective of science
and spirit? A helpful guide has been Jonathan Haidt and his book, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.

In one of his chapters he introduces the happiness formula:

H = S + C + V

H is happiness.

S
is our biological set point. According to Dr. Haidt, happiness is set
for us biologically. Happiness for the most part is in our genes.
It isn’t only in our genes. We can adjust our set point or our set
range. Dr. Haidt says we can cheat and push up that set point in three
ways,

The
sages past discovered early on, long before medication, that meditation
was the principle way to increase happiness, to raise that set point.
They knew of medication too. But it is trickier. It can have side
effects. Drink that gladdens the heart can also cause other problems.
The medication that the psychologist, Dr. Haidt is referring to is
modern medication such as Prozac. That has been helpful, in many
cases life-saving, but also tricky. Of course, CBT or cognitive
behavioral therapy was probably linked to virtue in the past. The
ancient form of CBT would be in the Book of Proverbs. The wisdom found there is about changing behavior. Such as:

Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

All
cultures have sage wisdom, much of it having to do with modifying
behavior. For the most part, happiness is set biologically. From a
modern perspective, these are three things that can boost up that set
point and provide a head start: Medication, Meditation, and Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy. That is the S in the equation. There is more.

H = S + C + V

C
represents the conditions of life. While the Buddha might have
insisted that happiness is within, there are some external things that
can affect our happiness, and we would do well to change them if we
can. According to the serenity prayer:

Give me the courage to change the things I can.The serenity to accept the things I cannot change.The wisdom to know the difference.

Some
of the things to change if you can are exposure to noise, commuting
time, amount of control over your own life decisions and stressors, body
image, and the one that trumps them all:

“the strength and number of a person’s relationships.” P. 94

This is what Dr. Haidt says about it:

“…having
an annoying office mate or roommate, or having chronic conflict with
your spouse—is one of the surest ways to reduce your happiness. You
never adapt to interpersonal conflict; it damages every day, even days
when you don’t see the other person but ruminate about the conflict
nonetheless.” P. 94

So externals
matter. There are ways to increase happiness by working on the
conditions of life, particularly our relationships. That is the C in
the equation. The most important condition or C is love—not just love
in the abstract but loving relationships with real flesh and blood
human beings.

H= S + C + V

V is
action. These are voluntary activities. V stands for those things we
voluntarily choose to do. They include activities that seek pleasure
and that build on our skills and strengths. Haidt writes:

“So
V (voluntary activity) is real….You can increase your happiness if you
use your strengths, particularly in the service of strengthening
connections—helping friends, expressing gratitude to benefactors.” P.
97-8

Four days later on June 28th, my 25 year old son, Zachary, died unexpectedly.

How do I fit that in the formula?

Happiness equals set point plus love plus work minus tragedy.

Jonathan
Haidt does say that the set point is called set point for a reason.
People win the lottery and after the initial euphoria wears off they
tend to drop back to their initial happiness biological set point.
People experience tragedy and after a time of grief then they tend to
move back up to their biological set point.

I guess we’ll see. I am not so sure about that but I’ll keep you posted.

To prepare for this series I bought a bunch of books on happiness. They have titles such as:

Stumbling On Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness: Discovering the Pathway to Fulfillment, Well-Being, and Enduring Personal Joy

Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

The Happiness Project: Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the
Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally
Have More Fun

I think those are all probably very good books. I haven’t opened any of them.

Recall this scene in The Wizard of Oz.
The scene is near the end when Dorothy, the Lion, the Scarecrow and
the Tin Man have discovered that the Wizard is a phony. He is no
wizard. He is a blowhard from Nebraska. He does know a few things,
though. He proceeds to pull out of his black bag a diploma for the
scarecrow, a testimonial for the tin man, and a medal of valor for the
lion. He knows that they had all those virtues already. They just
needed them recognized.

Then it is Dorothy’s
turn. Dorothy sees the helpless look on the wizard’s face and she
realizes she is in a different universe from her friends. She says,

“I don’t think there is anything in that black bag for me.”

No
there isn’t. She is from a different world. A tornado ripped through
her life. Her friends can watch and try to comfort her from a distance
but there is nothing they or the phony wizard can give her that will
help her get where she needs to go.

Like Dorothy, there
is nothing in that stack of happiness books for me. At least for
now. They are from a different world. Maybe they will be helpful
someday.

In a day or two lives will be ripped apart
along Florida’s coast and the Gulf Coast due to Hurricane Isaac.
Hopefully there will be enough warning so people can find safety but no
amount of forecasting and television coverage can communicate the pain
of loss. It is surreal watching the before knowing there will be an
after.

This life is fragile. I wonder if the only way we can protect our sanity is to pretend it isn’t.

When I selected the texts for this summer, I chose this saying for today from the Gospel of Thomas. It is a quote attributed to Jesus that sounds a lot like one from Luke 17:20-21:

When
asked by the Pharisees when the empire of God would come, he answered
them, “You won’t be able to observe the coming of the empire of God.
People won’t be able to say, ‘Look , here it is!’ or ‘Over there!’ On
the contrary, the empire of God is among you.”

I like the Thomas version more:

“His
disciples said to him, ‘When will the Father’s empire come?’ ‘It won’t
come by watching for it. It won’t be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look,
there!’ Rather, the Father’s empire is spread out upon the earth, and
people don’t see it.’” --Gospel of Thomas 113

One
question is whether or not Jesus is right. Is the empire of God spread
out upon the earth and among us or is it something that needs to come?
That is a big question. Is God going to make it better someday or
is what we got what we got and you ought to find the the empire of God
within it?

Scholars cannot agree on what Jesus
thought about that. The texts attribute both views to him. Some say
Jesus was apocalyptic, that is that God will intervene and make life
better. Others say no, Jesus believed that life is what we see and
what we make it to be.

So what view is likely to make
us happier? Will we be happier if we believe that the empire is
something that will come in the future or will we be happier if we
believe that the empire of God is spread out everywhere right now?

I
tend to think that people believe what they need to believe. For
what it is worth, I say, believe whatever gets you through.

This came in an email to me today. I liked it so I will share it with you:

Hope is not pretending that troubles don't exist.It is the trust that they will not last forever,that hurts will be healed and difficulties overcome.It is faith that a source of strength and renewal lies withinto lead us through the dark to the sunshine.

I
suppose this empire thing is both/and for me. Sometimes the sadness
and pain are too great to see the beauty and hope that is present, but I
have trust or faith that it is there and that it will come. Maybe, in
time, we will find it--in a happiness formula, maybe in someone’s black
bag, a stack of books, a song, a scripture verse, a journey inward, or
maybe through the eyes of a friend who can help us see it.

Friday, August 24, 2012

The song that keeps running through my head is "You've Got to Hide
Your Love Away" by the Beatles. Before all the Beatlemaniacs tell me
what the song "means" or "meant"
for me it is about grief. Grief is Love. Grief is Love that has
lost its object. It doesn't matter whether the grief is over a breakup
or a death, the song speaks about the loneliness of grief, its shame
and its social stigma. Here are the lyrics.

Here I stand head in hand
Turn my face to the wall

No that won't do.
You've got to hide your grief away. Hide it away. We don't want to see
it. Take it to a shrink or to a group or to your momma but don't show
it. Your time is up. We have to move on. When are you going to get
better? When will you be your old self again? When are you going to
get to that "new normal?" No one is saying this. This is my
projection even as it isn't just my projection. No one wants to see
people grieving forever. So for those who do wonder when I am going to
be my old self again, I do have an answer. Here it is. I will be
better on April 1, 2075 at 3:30 p.m. Can you wait that long?

The
astute observer will note that the patient is starting to get in touch
with his anger. It reveals itself in sarcasm and painful
witticisms. When approaching the patient take care not to do the following or you may lose your eye teeth.

Mention God. The patient and the Divine Master of the Universe are
not on speaking terms. No theological acumen on your part will do
anything to change that.

Attempt to cheer up the patient or say something "hopeful" such as "Someday you will grow from this." Grrrrr.

Give advice to the patient of any kind about any thing. Period.

I know this is confusing. It is one thing to respond to
someone's hurt and pain. It is totally another to try to respond to
anger. The most important thing to know about "the patient" is that if
you do run into anger, remember it is not about you. You could note
that the sky is blue and I might trip out on you. I have changed, not
anyone else. Those of us who are grieving may not even know what
these feelings are about and where they are directed. The sad part is
that "the patient" may drive away those s/he needs most. At least that
is what the patient fears.

This
is a book about cosmology and the universe and how wild it is. He
takes a few well-deserved and necessary pokes at theologians who want to
fit "God" in there somewhere. He shows convincingly to me at least
that there is not much place for "supernatural shenanigans" as he puts
it. He writes:

A universe without
purpose or guidance may seem, for some, to make life itself
meaningless. For others, including me, such a universe is
invigorating. It makes the fact of our existence even more amazing, and
it motivates us to draw meaning from our own actions and to make the
most of our brief existence in the sun, simply because we are here,
blessed with consciousness and with the opportunity to do so. p. 181

I
have been blathering for six years on this blog. I have expressed my
doubts about God, life after death, and what have you from the vantage
point of a minister. I like religion. I embrace its social aspect. I
regard its mythologies as poetry. When religion is honest it is
good. But it is hardly ever literal for me.

In
doing this, I have felt a little guilty. Perhaps I was writing from the
perspective of a person born sucking a silver spoon. Perhaps if I
suffered more I would more readily accept the teachings of the orthodox
faith and bow to the wisdom of Mother Church and her guardians. If I
was more acquainted with pain I would embrace the truth of the bodily
resurrection and the reality of a personal God.

Now
with the death of my son, I think I am a legitimate member of the
"sufferer's club." If that isn't a pitiful club to join I don't know
what might be.

Yet even after this experience, I cannot
say I am more willing to embrace orthodoxy. I am pretty much the same
as far as all of that goes. I recognize the impermanence of life
more. Some of the theologians got that right. I do love church. I
love the hymns and the scriptures, but more importantly I love the
people. I am fiercely proud and in awe of anyone who does and
believes in whatever they need to do or believe in in order to cope with
the excruciating fragility of life.

But after all of
this, I am, at the end of the day, no more and no less than I was
before, still in the camp of Krauss, who writes about the universe's
future thusly:

Our universe will then
recollapse inward to a point, returning to the quantum haze from which
our own existence may have begun. If these arguments are correct, our
universe will then disappear as abruptly as it probably began.In
this case, the answer to the question, "Why is there something rather
than nothing?" will then simply be: "There won't be for long." p. 180

Monday, August 20, 2012

On the upstairs coffee table the change is piling up. I empty the
change out of my pockets there at night. Every couple of weeks it
would vanish. It was kind of a game. Zach would grab it--probably for
cigarettes or gas or who knows. Yesterday I told Lovely that he hadn't
picked up the change and she said she used to leave things around,
too. She would leave for him leftover food especially of the meat and
potato variety. Now we will have to eat our own leftovers and spend
our own change.

It is the little things that get me.
That hollow burning pain in my chest never leaves even as it changes in
intensity. It burns when I drive by the Dairy Queen, or Mellow
Mushroom, or Lowe's, or the Roadrunner, or ETSU. I haven't driven on
the street by his apartment since we closed accounts with his
landlord. I don't like to drive to that side of town.

On
some days or on some parts of a day, when the chest burning is low, I
think that I am coming along. Then I realize the truth. It shrieks
through me like a January Montana wind. He isn't here. He isn't coming
back. Ever. What does any of it matter? The burning starts again.
It reminds me of Robert Frost:

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March.

I
have led worship three times. This was the first I didn't have to
hold back tears during the sermon. I was doing pretty well until our
organist, David, played "Be Still My Soul" during the offertory. Then I
started blubbering. I guess I am just going to have to blubber
through every damn song in the hymnal.

The funeral home
has been very helpful in many ways. I subscribe to a daily grief
support--words of wisdom thing--via the email. This was today's:

Know your limits. If you are tired or don't feel like
doing something, you can choose not to do it. The most important thing
is your care. Your friends and family will understand if you do not
join in some activities.

Say no. If you are invited out, but do not feel like
going, it is okay to say no. Others may want to see you out, as they do
not like to see you in pain. If you choose to decline some activities,
you do not need to give a reason.

That is nice to know. In that spirit, here are some preferences.

I
hear tell that there is a presidential election this year. I am not
really that oblivious but I really don't care. I will show up and vote
for one of the suits, but it is all so shallow to me. The only thing
more shallow is Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) politics. Many of those
in my former life who were on the "other side of the aisle" have been
gracious to us through this loss. That matters to me. I will go to
the presbytery meeting and stay for worship and see people. But I doubt
I'll be present for the business. I don't want to debate or to engage
in decision-making or watch others do it. I sure as hell don't want to
fight.

I have resigned from every community and
presbytery committee and board. Every day when I open my e-mail I
"unsubscribe" to the various newsletters of groups soliciting my
righteous passion. In regards to work, I am letting go of anything I
have to run, plan for, organize, schedule, or moderate (except for the
monthly session meeting). Thankfully, I have a great secretary,
Sandra, who can administrate a lot of this.

Also, I have a colleague, Rev. Don Steele, a retired PC(USA) minister who I wrote about previously.
Don is taking some of the load of working with committees and so
forth. We have given him the title, "Assistant to the Pastor."
Hardly a title for what he has done for me, my family, and my
congregation. This is all I am going to say about it, but I do hope
our presbytery will recognize his gifts and receive him as a member. As
far as I am concerned, no minister can hold a candle to him.

For my part, I can lead worship. I will do the radio show, Religion For Life.
I will do the funerals and the pastoral care and counseling, the
weddings, the hospital, the conversations over coffee, and the meeting
of new people. I will hang out with the youth, but I won't run the
program. I am getting more and more requests for holy unions for
same-gender couples. I am glad the word is getting out about that.
Those are gratifying. Don will help with all of this, too.

I'll
show up for stuff. Sometimes I may not. On some days I will just
stay home. Lovely doesn't have such flexibility with her job. But
since I do, I will take advantage of it so I can be more present to
her.

I will also find ways to grieve for my son both with Lovely and Daughter and the extended family and alone.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

David
and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their
might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and
cymbals.

2 Samuel 6:5

My wife’s grandmother is one of those people I have always enjoyed.
She is very down to earth.
About ten years ago the family was gathered and we were talking politics.
The conversation turned toward President Clinton
who at the time had just left office.
Grandma Helen had the best evaluation I have heard then or since.
She shook her head and said,

“He was a good president but a naughty boy.”

I think that might be a good evaluation for King David in the Bible.
He was a good king, but a naughty boy.

Some of the best literature in the Bible is found
in the narratives of 1 and 2 Samuel.
They are the stories, for the most part of David.
He is the shepherd boy chosen by God over his older,
stronger brothers because the text tells us

For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. 1 Sam. 16:7

David is the one chosen by God to replace Saul and be king over Israel.
Many of the stories reflect this tension between Saul and David.

When Saul goes mad, David is the one who soothes him with music.
David is the brave young man who slays the giant Goliath
with a slingshot and a smooth stone.
David is a mighty warrior.
While Saul kills his thousands, David kills his ten thousands.
The plot is complicated as Saul’s daughter Michal loved David.
But David really loved Saul’s son, Jonathan.
When Jonathan is killed in battle, David weeps for him and says,

“..my brother, Jonathan, greatly beloved were you to me;Your love to me was wonderful,Passing the love of women.” 2 Sam. 1:26

David is a victor and knows how to celebrate his victory.
After he brings back the ark of the covenant,
he strips down to his underwear and dances.

David
and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their
might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and
cymbals. 2 Samuel 6:5

His wife, Michal, is not impressed and tells him that
he is dishonoring his role as king.
But apparently, God was on David’s side on this one.
The text says that

“Michal, the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.” 2 Sam. 6:23

Biblical literature has an odd way of punishing its characters
in its attempt to determine what God might think.
I think it is important to remember that this is literature
and these are all literary characters created by their authors.
These literary characters include the character, God.
This literature has left a legacy in which tragedy is viewed as divine punishment.
But just because these ancient authors wrote in that way,
it doesn’t mean it is true.

Yet the passion is poignant.
David is acquainted with grief.
In addition to the death of his beloved, Jonathan,
David’s son,Absalom, also dies in battle.
David voices one of the greatest cries of grief
known in western literature:

‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’ 2 Sam. 18:33

In David, we see great joy and great grief.
And it is all out there.

In a narrative that begins with another great line from literature, “In the Spring of the year the time when kings go out to battle,”
David does his naughty thing.
He spies on the beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, bathing.
He has an affair with her while her husband is fighting for him.
Because he thinks she might be pregnant,
David tries to cover it up by calling Uriah
back to spend the night with his wife.
Uriah is such an honorable soldier that he
refuses to enjoy pleasure with his wife
while his comrades are fighting.
Then David has Uriah sent to the front lines where he will be killed.
After that happens, David makes Bathsheba his wife.

David’s scheme does not go unnoticed.
The Lord who sees on the heart also sees the sins of the heart.
The prophet Nathan confronts David with a story:

Once there was a man who had a small lamb.
He loved his lamb as if it were a child.
Another man had many lambs.
But the day the wealthy man wanted a feast
he took the poor man’s lamb and slaughtered it.

“What should happen to that man?” Nathan asks David.
David filled with righteous indignation said that the wealthy man deserves to die!

And Nathan says, and I need to use the King James to get the full effect,

“Thou art the man!”

Nathan tells David of his sin and David repents.
In the biblical way of regarding tragedy as judgment,
the child of David and Bathsheba dies in infancy.
And in the biblical way of expressing redemption,
another son of Bathsheba and David,
Solomon, eventually becomes David’s heir.

David is credited with writing the psalms,
all the great poetry of praise and lament.
It was fitting to credit David with that as his own life was filled with passion.
Plus he was a musician who could dance.
Current scholarship does not regard the psalms as authored by David.
In fact, the literature surrounding David is now considered by many scholars to be fiction more than history.
He is like King Arthur, more of a legend than an historical figure.

While that might be considered a loss,
that is the loss of the historicity of David, I tend to think of it as a gain.
Seen as literature, the authors come alive.
What is it they want to tell us about life, passion, and God through these stories?

In the character of David,
we are shown the depth and the height of human experience.
The greatest joys and the deepest sorrows are found in him.
In David, kingdoms are formed.
Battles are won.
Battles are lost.
He achieved greatness and he paid for that with great personal pain.
In the portrait of David,
the authors paint a life fully lived, filled with joy and sorrow.

One of the topics he addresses is life’s purpose and meaning.
Rather than speak objectively about the meaning of life,
which is pretty hard to do, actually,
he writes subjectively about something that is a bit more approachable.
What is the meaning within life?

How can we make our lives meaningful and purposeful? He writes:

Why
do some people live lives full of zest, commitment, and meaning, but
others feel their lives are empty and pointless? P. 219

The goal isn’t to judge ourselves or others
but really to give ourselves permission to invent or to reinvent ourselves.
We might look at some of the things human beings need.
In the end he says we are social creatures and industrial creatures.
We need love and attachments.
We need real relationships.
Also, we need vital engagement and meaningful work.
We need a calling, if you will.

He writes:

Happiness
is not something you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have
to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are
within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your
personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond
you. Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people
need love, work, and connection to something larger. It is worth
striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others,
between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something
larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of
purpose and meaning will emerge. P. 237-8

As I look at the story of David
who has relationships with many, both men and women,
who had meaningful work, battling giants and enemies
who established a kingdom for something higher than himself,
that is God,
who sins, and yet knows enough not to blame someone else for it,
or wallow in guilt,
but repents and pays the consequences,
who grieves deeply in his heart,
who makes music, writes poetry, and dances…

…so what of David?

Was he happy?
He probably had a good a chance as anyone.
So do we all….
Amen.

Friday, August 17, 2012

"He
was a gift to us for twenty-five years. When the gift was finally
snatched away, I realized how great it was. Then I could not tell him.
An outpouring of letters arrived, many expressing appreciation for
Eric. They all made me weep again: each word of praise a stab of loss.

How can I be thankful, in his gone-ness, for what he was? I find I am. But the pain of the no more outweighs the gratitude of the once was. Will it always be so?

I didn't know how much I loved him until he was gone.

Is love like that?" p. 13

"....Rather
often I am asked whether the grief remains as intense as when I wrote.
The answer is, No. The wound is no longer raw. But it has not
disappeared. That is as it should be. If he was worth loving, he is
worth grieving over." p. 5

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Lovely's sister and family have returned to Brooklyn. There may yet
be a lasagna in the freezer but most of the delicious food from the
church folks that we have received over the last six weeks has been
consumed. The casserole dishes have been washed and returned to the
church kitchen for pick up. Lovely has been teaching for two weeks.
Daughter has been working for over a month. I have led worship twice.
The green paraments in the sanctuary remind me that it is "ordinary
time." It is time to reenter this world. The liminal period has
ended.

I am not ready. Still I am liminal. I remember reading Victor Turner in seminary:

The neophyte in liminality must be a tabula rasa,
a blank slate, on which is inscribed the knowledge and wisdom of the
group, in those respects that pertain to the new status. The ordeals and
humiliations, often of a grossly physiological character, to which
neophytes are submitted represent partly a destruction of the previous
status and partly a tempering of their essence in order to prepare them
to cope with their new responsibilities and restrain them in advance
from abusing their new privileges. They have to be shown that in
themselves they are clay or dust, mere matter, whose form is impressed
upon them by society.

Turner is
writing about the rituals preparing someone to become a chief.
However, liminality also describes that experience of "betwixt and
between" during any transition. I feel like a tabula rasa
waiting to be inscribed. I am needing to learn who I am to be and how I
will fit in this world after this ordeal. The temptation is to "man
up" and just get on with life. I hear my inner curmudgeon tell me,

"Don't think about it too much and just get back to work. Move on, move on."

But,
aside from that being less than healthy for me, I also want something
from this. If the gods, fates, and demiurges are not going to give me
my son back, then I at least want some wisdom. If I can't hear the
sound of my son's voice then play for me some music through my
hollow-reed heart.

A small, wooden flute,
an empty, hollow reed,
rests in her silent hand.

It awaits the breath
of one who creates song
through its open form.

My often-empty life
rests in the hand of God;
like the hollowed flute,
it yearns for the melody
which only Breath can give.

The small, wooden flute and I,
we need the one who breathes,
we await one who makes melody.

And the one whose touch creates,
awaits our empty, ordinary forms,
so that the song-starved world
may be fed with golden melodies.

I also like this picture of Zach and me from last year's vacation at Outer Banks, North Carolina.

There
is not enough wisdom and music in this world to make up for this. But
I still won't leave this liminal state with nothing. This is what
Rabbi Harold Kushner got back from the gods:

I
am a more sensitive person, a more effective pastor, a more sympathetic
counselor because of Aaron's life and death than I would ever have been
without it. And I would give up all of those gains in a second if I
could have my son back. If I could choose, I would forego all the
spiritual growth and depth which has come my way because of our
experiences, and be what I was fifteen years ago, an average rabbi, an
indifferent counselor, helping some people and unable to help others,
and the father of a bright, happy boy. But I cannot choose. (When Bad Things Happen to Good People, pp. 133-4)

When I created the themes for summer worship I chose the larger theme of happiness. As I look back over the summer worship guide,
it seems like it came from a long time ago. Now as I am seeking to
get back into a rhythm of life which includes worship and ministry with
you and I look over these themes, I wonder what the old me was thinking.
My mood was playful when I put this together. Playful and
oblivious. In some ways, I was like a child, really, without a care
in the world. That isn’t true, of course. I had many cares. They
just seem so distant now.

I am no longer oblivious.
I have seen something. I have seen the excruciating fragility of
this precious life. You don’t come away from that unchanged. I hope
and I trust and actually I know that that old playfulness will peek
around the corner at me now and again. Thankfully, as we have been
surrounded by the light that as Jesus says “is over all things” that
playfulness hasn’t abandoned me. It isn’t the playfulness of a puppy
but of an older dog who for a moment forgets her aches and pains and
remembers the old, familiar games.

Scripture is not written for the young. The guardians of scripture try to force it on the young. “Read this, it is good for you.”
But you have to have experienced some fragility before its light
reveals the places within you that were formerly hidden in darkness.

This text for example. Jesus says,

“Split a piece of wood; I’m there. Lift up a stone, and you’ll find me there.”

As
you know I spent my childhood on a farm in Whitehall, Montana. I
split a fair share of wood in the Summer and Fall to use for the wood
furnace during the Montana winters. In Spring, after the field was
plowed, disked, and harrowed we would hitch an old hay trailer to the
tractor and pull it through the field. We would pick the stones that
had been turned up and pile them on the trailer. Then we unloaded
those stones in a pile on the edge of the field. As I split wood and
lifted up stones, I really can’t say that I saw Jesus.

Split a piece of wood; I’m there. Lift up the stone, and you’ll find me there.

What is he talking about?

I
know there are people who have seen the face of Jesus in the clouds, or
on a tree or in their oatmeal. I found this article that was written
just this week in the Christian Post:

An
elderly man at an adult daycare in Texas says when he was having his
bacon and egg breakfast taco, he noticed the face of Jesus on the flour
tortilla staring back at him. He showed it to others to confirm, and the
news of the "miracle" spread.Ernesto Garza, 80, has now tucked away a half-eaten breakfast
taco with an image of Jesus Christ, carefully wrapped in foil, in the
refrigerator at La Amistad Adult Daycare in Beeville, Texas, and intends
to preserve it for as long as he can. Like any other morning, Garza sat down with his taco at the
daycare's cafeteria and unwrapped it. But that morning, he decided to
eat only the inside of the taco. As he was poking around, he noticed a
face on the charred flour tortilla staring back at him."I looked at it for five minutes," Garza was quoted as saying.
Then he showed it to a friend sitting next to him and asked what she
thought the face on the tortilla looked like. Garza's friend looked at
it and jumped from her seat. "Jesus," she said.Soon, everyone at the daycare was in the cafeteria to have a
look at the face of Jesus, followed by a pouring of phone calls by media
outlets."Here's the eyes, nose, mouth, mustache," he told KRIS-TV."I consider it a blessing because it's unique," Angie Rodriguez,
the daycare's director, stated. She also said she had prayed the
previous night for a sign from God to reassure her in the midst of a
crisis in her life. The "miracle," she said, touched her life. "We
believe God works in mysterious ways."For Garza, it was "a blessing from God."

Jesus said,

“Split a piece of wood; I’m there.

Lift up the stone, and you’ll find me there.

Unwrap your breakfast taco and you’ll see me there.”

I am not an expert on the Gospel of Thomas
or on the philosophies that shaped its texts. Nor am I an expert in
the authenticity of Jesus sightings. I don’t know what Jesus or the
author of Thomas was thinking, but Taco Jesus probably wasn't it.

But
you know, people do experience the holy and the sacred in ways that are
open for them. There is a sense of longing for the sacred amidst our
ordinary lives. Consider life day in and day out in La Amistad
Adult Daycare Center in Beeville, Texas. For most of the residents,
this is the last stop before exit. I'll bet they could use a little
divine intervention. Good for the director of the center to call in
the media, make a miracle out of this, and brighten up these lives.
Why not? It is holy playfulness.

Good for those of you
who each day, make and celebrate miracles and make a big fuss over
others in a playful and joyful way.

Last night I
was at the Johnson City Cardinals ball game. In between innings they
have games for the kids. One of the games is to be the first to put on
jersey and a helmet and run to slap the hand of the guy with the
microphone. In this contest, there were two boys. One of the kids
was able-bodied and the other was in a wheelchair. The able bodied
kid took his time, purposely fumbled with the jersey and helmet so the
boy in the wheelchair would win.

Those little miracles of kindness happen all the time. Peter Mayer in his song, “Holy Now” writes:

…the challenging thing becomesNot to look for miraclesBut finding where there isn't one

We
long for the sacred and the holy. We long for the story of Moses
confronted by God in the bush that burns but is not consumed to be true.
We long for the miracle of Jesus turning the boy's lunch of bread
and fish into a feast for 5,000 to happen today. We want to see Jesus
in his glory on the mountaintop as did Peter, James, and John. In a
similar story from the Hindu tradition, Krishna gives Arjuna eyes to see
as God sees and he is transported to view the cosmos in a way he has
never seen before. He is confronted by the holy and his life is
transformed. We want that.

Those are the stories of
scripture. They are not repeated literally in our lives, but they
speak to the experience of the holy that we glimpse when we are open and
vulnerable to it. Now we might see it in acts of kindness when this
ordinary world with its excruciating fragility is embraced by the light
of love and human compassion. In that light, wood, stones, and even
breakfast tacos become experiences of the holy.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Lovely's sister and her new baby, Cooper, are here for the week,
visiting from Brooklyn. She had lived with us since we were in seminary
and she was in the seventh grade. She grew up with our kids. Now,
she is married and has a new son, Cooper, who Zach didn't quite get to
meet. She wasn't able to be here for the memorial service. It is good
to have them here. Here's Coop on his birthday.

Cooper
and I are home with the dogs while all the women are at book club.
Lovely's sister dressed me up in this baby wrap thing and I took Coop
and the three dogs for a walk. I am sure I frightened the neighbors.

Then Coop and I watched the Sony Movie Channel: Breakout, The Hunt for Eagle One, and Bite the Bullet. He is a good movie partner. Few complaints. Eats. Poops. Likes being held. My kinda guy.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Five weeks ago today my Lovely and I were in Pittsburgh getting ready
for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). We were
looking forward to an exciting week. I was elected as a commissioner
and Bev was going to enjoy some vacation. Zach was going to house sit
and take care of the dogs.

Bev and I settled in to our
hotel. Then we wandered around the city. We went out to dinner and
then to a comedy club. I texted Zach:

We are at the bar in Pittsburgh. Going to watch a comedy show. Pittsburgh is a neat city.

He
never got it. He never got any of those texts we sent that day any
more than he gets the texts I continue to send him into the aether.

On
our way back to the hotel we received a phone call from our daughter.
She was crying and sobbing and scared. She told us that the police had
been to our house looking for us and were coming to her apartment. By
the time we reached our hotel the police had arrived at her apartment.
They told her in person and us by phone that Zach was found in his
apartment dead. In time, when the family is ready, I'll write about
the manner of his death.

We packed our things and drove back to our home in Johnson City.

Our lives have been changed forever.

The
other day I heard a man in his mid 50s tell his dad who is about 80,
"See ya, Pops." They have lunch every Friday. I realized another
loss. I won't be growing old with Zach. All these memories that are
so fresh now, will age as will his pictures. His photos will be dated
like those from my high school days in the 70s or like those of me when I
was 25. Unlike my photos, he will be frozen in his forever.

I
was 25 when he was born. I was on the radio. I was a disc jockey in
Seattle for 106-FM KRPM. I had just finished my show. I worked
evenings, seven to midnight. As soon as I left the building my wife had
called the station. On my way home the woman who followed me announced
on the air that my wife's water broke and I had better get home.
These were the days before cell phones. That was TMI for the rest of
the radio audience but I got the message. I'm glad I was listening.

I
rushed home. We went to the hospital and within an hour Zachary Andrew
Shuck was born, February 8th, 1987 in Renton, Washington.

Our lives were changed then, too. A new son to go with a toddling daughter.

It is right for a father to get a call about his son's upcoming birth. That is a good change.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

We made it through church. You can even read the sermon.
Everyone was loving and kind. I feel bad feeling bad because everyone
is so kind. I hope they know that my feeling bad has nothing to do
with them. There is no way ever that anyone is going to fix or ease
anything, no matter how kind.

I am a black hole.

So
after it was over I felt, I am sorry to say, a sense of dread. The
problem is that I need to do it again. And again. And again. Every
Sunday until I retire or die with my robe on.

I have nothing to give. All I have are grief and pain.

On the sermon menu are grief and pain. I may be able to serve up a side of bullshit.

My
anxiety says, "Who can possibly listen to that week after week? What
congregation could be patient enough to wait for me to 'get through
this?'"

I know. One sermon at a time. One week at a time. One day at a time. I got it. I'll get up there. I'll do it.

It
has been six weeks since I preached my last sermon. This is the
longest I have been out of the pulpit since before we moved here seven
years ago. My last sermon here on June 24th seems like and really is
from a different world, a different life.

We have
felt the embrace of love and compassion from this congregation. From
the first day that we received our tragic news, you all have been there
for us and continue to be here for us. Do know that Bev, Katy, and I
are very, very grateful to all of you for your love and support. We
have been held by the larger community and by the friends we know from
places we have lived previously. Bev and Katy have been embraced from
friends at their workplaces. Complete strangers pray for us.

Katy
has been back to her work for several weeks now. Bev went back to
school this past week and greets students this coming week. Thanks to
Don Steele for leading Sunday services these previous two weeks, I have
been able to ease into a rhythm of sorts at church and in worship.

Today
I am honored and privileged to be in the pulpit and to administer the
sacrament of communion with you, my friends. This is a sacred space and
a sacred time.

I have no idea what I am doing. I guess that is not unusual.

I don’t know what I am supposed to do or how to do it. I wrote in the White Spire
that I hope to follow a path between two extremes. On one hand to
avoid pretending that I can fulfill my calling as a minister as if my
personal loss has no bearing on it, and on the other hand to avoid
misusing the pulpit as my own group therapy. That seems to make
sense, but I don’t know. I really don’t have a lot of rules about
this. We’ll see what happens.

I do write some posts
on my blog. That is a personal medium that kind of works for me.
Feel free to read it, but I ask you not to read too much into it. It
is one way I process a lot of things. Since Zach’s death, I use it to
address aspects of grief that I feel comfortable writing about publicly.

That isn’t the only way. I won’t speak for Bev and
Katy, but do know that we are doing what we need to do and getting the
support we need socially and professionally. I know that you wonder
what you can do for us and I am sure that you would like to ease our
pain and that you probably feel helpless to do so. That’s real. I
don’t know what to do to ease my pain and I feel helpless too. So we
are in that same boat. But we are floating.

I also
know that our grief can trigger the grief of others. Our experience
has and will bring up emotions of loss that many have experienced.
Perhaps this is true for you. I hope that you can be real with that.
One of the things you might do as an individual is to pay attention to
your own feelings of loss. I hope you can find a way to share that.
Feel free to talk to me about that. I would like that.

One
of the many things that was done in these past few weeks that I
appreciated was the adult forum on grief that I heard Carol Ann McElwee
led. It might be a good idea to have more of those kinds of forums.

Harriet Baker put a book in my mailbox courtesy of
the Morris-Baker Funeral Home that has been really helpful. I would
recommend this book to anyone, How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies.
It is good solid truth about grief and loss. The author is
psychologist Dr. Therese Rando. It validated so much of what I was
feeling.

Maybe one of the things we can do as a
congregation is to respond to our personal loss by becoming even more
aware of the losses we all suffer and how we grieve them in unique ways.
I know I would feel good to know that something helpful and healing
could come out of this.

One
aspect of joy is the awareness that we have something of divinity about
us. We have a sacred dimension, perhaps a vertical dimension that
transcends, permeates, and embraces all of our being.

I think this is what Jesus discovered when he said,

“You are the light of the world.” “You are the salt of the earth.”

Or as Krishna said,

“The Lord lives in the heart of every creature.”

We are more than the sum of our body parts.
This is true whether we feel it or not.
Every life is a gift.
This is true whether that person knows it or not.
No matter what, Love will not let us go.

For
the past month I have felt a physical burning in my chest, as if my
heart has been emptied. It is hollow. It is a hollow pain.

What does that mean to be hollow in the heart?

This week I chose for one of our readings the poem from Hafiz about stealing the flute
from Krishna. As I was writing this sermon I was curious about the
significance of Krishna’s flute. I am sure that there are many, many
meanings, but one I found that I particularly liked is this. It speaks to me of the meaning and possibility of this emptiness in my heart:

If
you get rid of your ego and become like a hollow reed flute, then the
Lord will come to you, pick you up, put his lips and breathe through you
and out of the hollowness of your heart, the captivating melody will
emerge for all creations to enjoy.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

I slept in Zach's bed the other night in Zach's old room.
I dreamt about him. I can't remember much about it except that I was
searching for him. I keep searching for him. I find myself searching
"Zachary Shuck" on google every few days. I text him. He scrubbed
his facebook page. He wasn't much for social media anyway but nothing
is left but his name now.

The last time his sister,
mother, and I saw him was on Father's Day. I revisit his last ten days
between Father's Day and when he took himself from us. I looked
through his bank statement to piece together where he went and what he
did. I want to get in his mind and understand what he was thinking and
feeling. Why do I do this? Perhaps there is a part of me that
thinks that maybe if I figure out the puzzle there will be a different
outcome. I want one more chance.

Obsessive
thinking after a loss gives you the opportunity to look at the death in
every way possible to try to comprehend the event and its
implications. At the same time, you are unconsciously hoping that the
next time you review it the ending will have changed....

Preoccupation
with the deceased is a natural response to the loss. First, it is a
wish to undo the loss. It allows you to "be with" your loved one even
if only in your thoughts. Second, it is a reflection of the internal
grief work being done. You are focusing attention on the deceased in an
attempt to hold that loved one close in your heart and mind. This
makes it akin to hugging someone and holding him tightly before saying
goodbye and letting him go. This preoccupation with the deceased is
often manifested on obsessive rumination about him, dreaming about him,
thinking that you have seen him, or actively searching for him. This is
accompanied by intense yearning. aching, and pining for what has been
taken away from you. p. 41

Tomorrow I preach for the first time. It is back to the theme with which I started the summer sermon series, Happiness. Guess I'll go by the old adage of "fake it 'til you make it" regarding that one.